Wednesday, May 26, 2010

• I do things without thinking twice or its consequences or what the others may say?

• I act as if I have the same innocence and the same will for adventure that I had when I was 6 years old?

• I’m spontaneous and I forget everything I have learnt?

• I call a friend to tell her how much I love and miss her and that I do not remember why we fought and I no longer care, because all I want is to have her back in my life. Since all I remember are the good moments we spend together and I want to enjoy them again.

• Instead of getting annoyed with the supermarket cashier because she is having a bad day and has decided to take it on me, I ignore her attitude and then treat her with more kindness than the usual one?

• I put on my best dress, shoes and perfume and sit to wait for my loved one, then when he comes and he asks me: “Where are you going gorgeous?” I just answer: “Nowhere, I was waiting for you!”

What will happen if……?

The list is very long; there are so many things we do not do because we are afraid of breaking the rules, or to be labeled as crazy or risking everything we have…So what! Life is supposed to be fun, so let us dance while we travel our road, always remembering that what matter most is the way we travel and not to where we are heading to!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

I can’t stop thinking about what I heard the other day on TV, where they were covering the life of the street children of Nepal, someone described them as: “The invisible people”.Those worlds are still reverberating in my mind all along since then, as they do not sound right and are very disturbing.Street children are the sons and daughters of poverty, development, materialism and the collapsing of moral and spiritual values. They are the victims of a failing system, the innocent sufferers of a collective selfishness.They live on the streets for several different reasons; many are orphans who lost their parents from HIV, malaria, typhus, starvation, etc. Others are abused children coming from dysfunctional family environment, who ran away from their homes escaping from the daily physical and moral abuse they are subjected to. Some of them are even born on the streets.

Some facts about street children:

Recent global estimates indicate there are 100 million street children. Other more localized studies point to 11 million in India, 1 million in U.S., 445,226 in Bangladesh, 250,000 street children in Kenya, 150,000 in Ethiopia, 30,000 in Nepal and 12,000 in Zimbabwe. Projections estimate an increasing number of street children, growing especially with the pace of urbanization.

These street children include: children living on the street with no home at all, children spending most of their time on the streets, without opportunities for education and care; and child workers who spend most of their time working on the street.

The United Nations estimates that between 133 million and 275 million children experience violence at home annually, with the largest proportion in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Boys and girls are often equally subjected to child abuse by family members and are equally victimized by child labour exploitation. However, globally, girls make up 98 per cent of children who are sexually exploited. Child abuse is a major risk factor linked to future criminal behaviour.

(a girl from Ethiopia)

Helping street children is a though challenge, as these children usually need a long period of rehabilitation. It can take many months or years to firstly build up their trust, as they have normally endured only pain and abuse from adults. So it is a long-term work of commitment and rarely a quick fix that they need to help them release their potential.

Observers say that street children have a life expectancy of around four years on the street.

UNICEF estimates that over 2 million children, mainly girls, are exploited through prostitution and pornography. 1.2 million girls and boys are trafficked each year – many to join the sex trade.

Law and order officials and self-styled vigilantes both attempt to ‘clean the street’ of these children in many parts of the world. In Latin America the problem is particularly acute with the worst offenders being Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras. An average of three street children are killed every day in the state of Rio de Janeiro. In Cairo, street children are routinely rounded up and beaten by the police, their heads are shaven and then they are transferred to crowded detention centres.

Studies conducted in Nepal and Guatemala showed that urban street children were in better health than children in stable homes in farming villages: an indicator of the depths of rural poverty in these countries rather than a recommendation for life on the street.

(Village children - Zambia)

None of these children are invisible, we see them everywhere we go, in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. The number is increasing at an unbelievable rate, as governments are failing to implement proper corrective measures to solve the economic and social problems affecting the source of their miserable existence.

“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that is the essence of inhumanity.” -George Bernard Shaw

(Information for this post has been compiled from information sources of UNICEF, World Hope, Human Rights Watch, and others.)